


Tradition

by Lawsonia_Inermis



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bonding, Brothers, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7431859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lawsonia_Inermis/pseuds/Lawsonia_Inermis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soon after the death of their father, Dick Grayson introduces Damian Wayne to a family tradition, as well as what and how much that tradition means to him. </p><p>Inspired by an episode of "Gotham" but takes place in the comicsverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> Set soon after Bruce’s death, Tim’s leaving on his Red Robin journey, and Dick and Damian becoming partners. Inspired by an episode of Gotham, although I wrote this story and watched the series long enough ago that I have no idea which one. For clarity, the episode of Gotham depicted a yearly hike that Bruce would take with his father, Thomas, when the man was still alive. They would head to a particular point in the woods where they each had a pile of small, smooth stones that they would heighten by one every year. I liked the idea so much that I thought to have Bruce continue the tradition with Dick, and Jason, and well, you'll hear about the rest in the fic. I really enjoyed working with this concept/idea, and I hope you enjoy reading it, too!

“This is _pointless_ , Grayson,” Damian huffed, and had his arms not been occupied with gripping the cold, jagged surface of the cliff, Dick was _positive_ he’d be crossing them.

“It’s _tradition_ ,” Dick replied, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Dick had almost reached the top, now; he had tried to get Damian to climb up first, but the young boy had scowled so hard that his brows had almost touched, and then _insisted_ that Dick go first, instead, because, “I will not need you to _catch me_ , Grayson!”

Some moments Dick almost, _almost_ regretted bringing Damian out here, and had to remind himself that the kid had just as much right to this tradition as the rest of their family did.

“Your grandfather’s tradition, at that,” Dick added, like maybe it would mean something.

“Grandfather is dead,” Damian responded, not phased in the least, “and I never met him.”

“It was your father’s, too,” Dick continued, feeling a tad desperate.

There was a short silence, this time, but Damian still managed to sound unaffected when he said, “Father is dead, also.”

Dick had reached the top, now, and pushed himself up over the edge of the cliff. He could feel a sheen of sweat on him, and could see it, too, when he glanced down at the places where the moisture stuck the dirt and dust of the cliffside to his skin. His black tee-shirt was _streaked_ with it, too.

When Dick glanced back down, Damian was pulling himself up with ease. Somehow, the kid had managed to keep himself mostly dust-free, and despite the fact that he was in a, albeit thin, sweater, he didn’t seem half as heated as Dick was.

It hurt Dick’s pride, just a little.

Damian righted himself, dusting some imaginary dirt off of his jeans. He looked up at Dick with slightly flushed cheeks - which was a relief, really, because that climb had been _rough,_ and Dick wasn't entirely sure how he'd respond to Damian completing it with ease - and that same, deep scowl.

“It’s my tradition, too, now,” Dick continued, “because Bruce shared it with me. It’s Jason’s, too--”

Damian’s full out _scoffed_ at that, but Dick would not be paused.

“-- because Bruce shared it with him, and it’s Tim’s, too, because _I_ shared it with him, and it’s _tradition_ so you _will, at least once,_ do this with me,” Dick insisted with a vehemence that had Damian heaving a long, woeful sigh.

“Drake is gone, now,” Damian pointed out, but his tone wasn't that of someone who was actually fighting, to Dick’s relief.

“But not dead,” Dick said, with all the faith he could muster, because he did not, in fact, know that. He knew absolutely nothing of his brother since he’d let him go, that day outside the graveyard. Dick turned to face the stretch of the woods they’d need to follow to reach their destination.

“Todd’s dead, too,” Damian said, and he sounded almost _pleased_ about it, and Dick had to remind himself that the kid had been raised by _Al Ghuls_ and that acclimating him to life in Gotham, life as a _Wayne_ and as a  _bat_ , would be a bit more difficult than stuffing him in a Robin suit and declaring, “have at ‘er!”

“He is _not_ ,” Dick protested, although not enterely confident. “He’s alive.”

“He died, then,” Damian amended, and then they were walking, albeit not quite side-by-side, through the Bristol county woods.

Dick didn’t have anything to say to that, and so he didn’t say anything at all. As he reached up to adjust the now somewhat lopsided backpack, the thought of its contents had him how long it had been since they'd set out, and how hungry he now was, too.

“Let’s break for lunch,” Dick suggested, side-eyeing Damian as if daring him to protest.

The kid huffed, and shot Dick a funny look he didn’t quite know how to interpret, but in the end nodded his assent.

They wound up sitting on a tree root that protruded from the forest's soil, rigid and textured but a comfortable height off of the ground, and mostly cleaned of dirt by the heavy rain they’d been experiencing for the last week. Dick settled himself as comfortable as he could onto the surface of it before he unzipped the bag and placed it, pouch open, in the space between him and Damian. Damian, unsurprsingly, had chosen to sit just far enough away to make it _weird_.

Taking responsibility of Damian had turned out to be a lot more trouble than Dick had anticipated. Dick felt himself questioning every word he spoke and action he made, worried of hurting Damian, of unintentionally shattering his confidence or happiness (although Dick was entirely certain that the latter even existed), or giving him the wrong idea about something important.

(Dick found himself wondering if Bruce had ever felt the same way while raising him, or Jason, or Tim).

It was a lot warmer today than they’d expected it to be, and Dick felt himself grateful for the fact he’d brought a tee-shirt, and _worried_ about the fact that Damian was in a sweater, but with no way to voice his concern without setting the kid off on another one of his favorite, _“I don’t need your protection, Grayson!”_ rants.

(Dick felt himself behaving like his dad used to, when he’d still been alive, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he liked it).

Alfred had packed their lunch, of course. Lucky for him, Damian never complained about the food when the man wasn’t there to hear it himself. Dick didn’t know how well he’d handle that, today.

This tradition had, somehow, become infinitely important to Dick.

Dick stuffed his hand into the pocket of his joggers, and thumbed the smooth surface of the rock. He thought about his pile, almost as tall as Thomas’ now, but nowhere near the size of Bruce’s. He thought about Jason’s, just overtaken by Tim’s, last year. Thought about Damian’s joining the little line of rock piles.

Dick tried, very hard, not to think about the fact that Bruce’s pile would never grow again, or about the fact that his might become taller than it, one day, or that maybe it _never would_. He couldn’t help but wish Tim was here, too, to add a to his own pile. This was the first year that his younger brother would miss doing so.

Missing years had been another tradition, however, in a way.

The years Bruce had missed, when he was training to become Batman, firstly. The years Dick had missed between Robin and Nightwing, when he and Bruce hadn’t been doing so great. The years Jason missed when-- well, when he was _dead_. Now, the years Tim was missing, doing god knows what-- getting over Robin, Dick supposed, like Dick himself had, those many years ago.

Dick had remembered clearly, a day not even five years ago when he and Bruce and Tim had all come here together, to realize that Jason’s pile had grown, by one. It had been after the Red Hood had rolled into town, and after they’d realized who he was, too. None of them had said a word about it, but none of them, Dick thought, were bothered by the fact, either. Or rather, Bruce might have been bothered, but not about the fact that Jason had chosen to pick back up this _tradition_. Jason, Dick realized, aside from Bruce, would be the first one to make that hike alone. Part of Dick wondered how that would feel, but the rest of him didn’t want to ever know.

(Dick had almost come alone, today. It had been hard to convince himself to invite Damian. It had been harder to convince Damian to actually come).

All that said, it might just be to Dick that this ritual was so important.

(Dick didn’t think that was true. Why would Jason have bothered coming back, if that were the case?)

When Dick finally broke out of his thoughts, Damian was giving him another of those _looks_. Dick couldn't help but think that the expression looked out of place on Damian's face; Damian was rarely, Dick found, anything but _cranky_.

Damian was curious.

Dick assumed Damian hadn’t had one of these family-tradition-things, before.

“It’s about--” Dick started, because it was oddly important to him for to Damian _understand_ , “family, to start, but it’s more than that,” he added, then paused, then continued again, “They count the years. Thomas Wayne’s counted the years he got to spend with Bruce. Bruce’s… they count the years _since_. He said that he threw all of his rocks over the cliff, the first time he came here after his parents died. Mine…”

Dick glanced at Damian. The kid was uncharacteristically quiet, watching him and waiting for him to continue.

“Well, mine count the years since my parents died, too,” Dick explained, “but they also count the years where I was Robin, and the years that I’ve been Nightwing-- and now… Batman, too, I guess,” he frowned, because that last one still wasn’t a pleasant thought, at all.

Damian still didn’t say anything, and it took a moment for Dick to realize what he was waiting for.

“Jason also started when he became Robin, and he stopped when… he died," obviously, "and they started again--” Damian actually looked _surprised_ at the fact, and Dick was inordinately pleased to get a reaction from the boy that wasn’t annoyance, “-- one year after he came back, as the Red Hood. Tim…”

Damian was still waiting, although Dick wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to go on. It felt wrong to be speaking poorly of Bruce, even in passing, now that he was gone, but stopping here would be supremely suspicious, Dick knew, and it _meant something_ to him that Damian understand why they did this.

“Tim didn’t actually start when he was Robin. After Jason, Bruce was... well, Tim started after his dad died. I brought him up here, that year. It was only a week after it happened.”

Despite the conversation, the two of them had made their way through the entirety of their lunch; hearty sandwiches and homemade juice, leaving only the plastic containers and empty bottles which Alfred had packed them in. There were still four waters in their bag, which Dick thought to save for when they reached their destination, and began the considerably shorter trek back.

“I still think it's stupid,” Damian informed him, standing and putting his empty containers back into the bag.

Dick watched the boy reach into the pocket of his jeans and draw out a rock of his own. Damian scowled at it for a short moment before stuffing it back into his pocket.

“Let’s get going, then,” Damian grumbled, looking out in the direction of their goal, and crossing his arms. “We must get back in time to patrol.”

Dick snorted, startled, and cut through the oddly serious mood that had fallen between them. “We never patrol after _the tradition,_ ” he informed Damian.

Damian’s head whipped back around to stare at Dick with something between horror and disgust. “That is unacceptable,” Damian declared.

“It’s part of the tradition!” Dick protested.

“We can leave that part out,” Damian huffed, but he still wasn’t saying that he wouldn’t finish their hike, so Dick thoguht to concede with an, “I’ll think about it.”

Damian huffed, again. “Don’t think I don’t know what that means, Grayson. If you won’t go out tonight, I’ll patrol on my own,” Damian announced, and it was equal parts a statement and a threat.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dick sighed, standing from the trunk and dusting off his joggers. “ _Fine_. Let’s go, then. That  _significantly_ tightens our timetable," he added, accusingly.

Damian just scoffed, before turning around and resuming the hike.

Dick followed closely behind. **  
**

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave as much criticism as you feel this warrants in the comments below! I'd also love to hear if you enjoyed it and what about it that you enjoyed, if you're comfortble with sharing :) Thank you for reading! Leave kudos if you enjoyed. You can also find me on themarvelousdcu.tumblr.com. I also have an Earth-3 / Owlfam fic and a Red Robin fix-it fic focusing on Tim and Dick's relationship coming out in the next two weeks, so look forward to those.


End file.
